It's taken me some time figure out how to respond to this piece. I had to sit with it a while--still not 100% that I've worked out my thoughts, because as much as I love to see your breakdowns of the kind of psychological dysfunction that comes from (or results in?) ideological rigidity, I can't help feeling like there must be *more* on the far side of this process--more than the passivity of gently spinning in place, satisfied not to seek truth, and having given up on meaning entirely.
I have the intuition that to hold and nurture epistemic uncertainty should be something of an instrumental choice--something done consciously and willfully, in order to place oneself at the center of an ideological superposition where one can to effect maximum reach across many different ways of thinking. There might not be any real truth to be found in this world; maybe everyone needs to construct a truth of their own in order to ultimately feel okay existing at all. Of course, going about this requires wisdom and a pretty rock-solid moral center, of the sort that is difficult to actually establish when you've decided to put yourself in charge of delineating your own truth... No, I don't have a solution to the issue. We're operating on vibes here.
Might leave this thought half-finished, because it's been one of those days and I can't find the words to round it off. But thanks as always for the hard work you put into these pieces, Mike. (Hope I didn't lose the plot in the process of trying to digest a long-form essay; hope I haven't terribly misunderstood any of your points. What a fool I would feel like then!)
This is interesting, in that it suggests I may be inadvertently portraying a kind of relativistic lens that I don't believe in at all. I love your critique and especially the line about
"the passivity of gently spinning in place, satisfied not to seek truth, and having given up on meaning entirely."
I can't for the moment remember whose theory of mind this is, but there's an idea of the world as hidden behind a kind of user interface which our minds evolved to navigate through mere *representations*. Like the icons in an operating system. In this world 'knowledge' is no more profound than clicking around in ways that produce a predictable effect.
This doesn't answer your critique, it's just a tangent I'm fascinated with at the moment.
In truth, I suspect that the only error you've made is perceiving a more sophisticated attempt at sense making than I've really offered. In the end I was describing nothing much beyond some personal rules of thumb that help to keep me sane and less vulnerably narcissistic about being right about things.
It's a work in progress and I'm very grateful that you're along for the ride!
I don't think you're portraying a relativistic lens--I'm imposing one upon you. Sorry about that. I do not currently occupy a stable position in my relationship to relativism and we duck and weave in and out with one another. You've gotten pulled in the wake.
Part of why I enjoy your writing is that I see you putting words to the thought processes which I've been employing for most of my life but always lightly resented for apparently setting me sideways compared to my highly-opinionated peers. Forgive me--I find your work validating. I enjoy being told that I haven't been doing existence wrong this whole time.
But I don't think that I'm content to forever sit back and scoff at how entrenched and myopic everyone else is, not like me. I'm getting older and I feel the need to learn how to stand FOR something, to figure out my relationship with the world and come up with a plan for how to participate in it meaningfully. Epistemic humbleness is an important tool to learn how to use but it needs to be employed to some end, I think. I think...
This is a work in progress too. Thanks for putting out an ear.
It's taken me some time figure out how to respond to this piece. I had to sit with it a while--still not 100% that I've worked out my thoughts, because as much as I love to see your breakdowns of the kind of psychological dysfunction that comes from (or results in?) ideological rigidity, I can't help feeling like there must be *more* on the far side of this process--more than the passivity of gently spinning in place, satisfied not to seek truth, and having given up on meaning entirely.
I have the intuition that to hold and nurture epistemic uncertainty should be something of an instrumental choice--something done consciously and willfully, in order to place oneself at the center of an ideological superposition where one can to effect maximum reach across many different ways of thinking. There might not be any real truth to be found in this world; maybe everyone needs to construct a truth of their own in order to ultimately feel okay existing at all. Of course, going about this requires wisdom and a pretty rock-solid moral center, of the sort that is difficult to actually establish when you've decided to put yourself in charge of delineating your own truth... No, I don't have a solution to the issue. We're operating on vibes here.
Might leave this thought half-finished, because it's been one of those days and I can't find the words to round it off. But thanks as always for the hard work you put into these pieces, Mike. (Hope I didn't lose the plot in the process of trying to digest a long-form essay; hope I haven't terribly misunderstood any of your points. What a fool I would feel like then!)
This is interesting, in that it suggests I may be inadvertently portraying a kind of relativistic lens that I don't believe in at all. I love your critique and especially the line about
"the passivity of gently spinning in place, satisfied not to seek truth, and having given up on meaning entirely."
I can't for the moment remember whose theory of mind this is, but there's an idea of the world as hidden behind a kind of user interface which our minds evolved to navigate through mere *representations*. Like the icons in an operating system. In this world 'knowledge' is no more profound than clicking around in ways that produce a predictable effect.
This doesn't answer your critique, it's just a tangent I'm fascinated with at the moment.
In truth, I suspect that the only error you've made is perceiving a more sophisticated attempt at sense making than I've really offered. In the end I was describing nothing much beyond some personal rules of thumb that help to keep me sane and less vulnerably narcissistic about being right about things.
It's a work in progress and I'm very grateful that you're along for the ride!
I don't think you're portraying a relativistic lens--I'm imposing one upon you. Sorry about that. I do not currently occupy a stable position in my relationship to relativism and we duck and weave in and out with one another. You've gotten pulled in the wake.
Part of why I enjoy your writing is that I see you putting words to the thought processes which I've been employing for most of my life but always lightly resented for apparently setting me sideways compared to my highly-opinionated peers. Forgive me--I find your work validating. I enjoy being told that I haven't been doing existence wrong this whole time.
But I don't think that I'm content to forever sit back and scoff at how entrenched and myopic everyone else is, not like me. I'm getting older and I feel the need to learn how to stand FOR something, to figure out my relationship with the world and come up with a plan for how to participate in it meaningfully. Epistemic humbleness is an important tool to learn how to use but it needs to be employed to some end, I think. I think...
This is a work in progress too. Thanks for putting out an ear.